Kevin Harvick is 25/1 to win on Daytona Road Course

 

KEVIN HARVICK Daytona Road Course Advance No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

●  Event:  O’Reilly Auto Parts 253 (Round 2 of 36) ●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 21 ●  Location:  Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway ●  Layout:  14-turn, 3.61-mile road course ●  Laps/Miles:  70 laps/252.7 miles ●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 16 laps / Stage 2: 18 laps / Final Stage: 36 laps ●  TV/Radio:  FOX / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  Turning left and right. Going up and down through the gears. Hitting the apex of corners and, sometimes, riding the curb with such force that it puts the car on two wheels. It’s all a part of road-course racing, and it demands maximum performance from every part and piece on the racecar. Kevin Harvick has as added advantage with Mobil 1. Not only is the world’s leading synthetic motor oil brand the primary sponsor on Harvick’s No. 4 Ford Mustang for the Daytona road course, Mobil 1 products are used throughout his racecar and they extend beyond just engine oil. Power steering fluid, transmission fluid, gear oil and driveline lubricants from Mobil 1 give Harvick a technical advantage over his counterparts by reducing friction, heat and rolling resistance. Mobil 1 is a sponsor whose technology makes Harvick’s No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang faster.   ●  Harvick was one of 21 NASCAR Cup Series drivers to have already sampled the Daytona road course in 2021. The driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing competed in the non-points Busch Clash Feb. 9 on the 14-turn, 3.61-mile circuit, starting 17th and finishing 15th.   ●  The Busch Clash marked Harvick’s second NASCAR Cup Series race on the Daytona road course, but his third overall. The NASCAR Cup Series raced on the Daytona road course for the first time last August. Harvick started from the pole and ran among the top-10 until two separate spins in the final stage relegated him to a 17th-place finish. Prior to that race, Harvick’s lone appearance on the Daytona road course came in 2002 during the Rolex 24 at Daytona sports-car race. Harvick co-drove the No. 90 Flis Motorsports entry in the American Grand Touring (AGT) class alongside Davy Lee Liniger, Rick Carelli and John Metcalf. Harvick qualified the car and drove early in the race but the engine expired after just 123 of the race’s 716 laps. The team finished eighth in class and 69th overall.   ●  The Daytona road-course race is the first of a ground-breaking seven NASCAR Cup Series races to be held on road courses in 2021. From 1988 to 2017, there were only two road courses on the schedule – Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. The Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval was added in 2018, giving the series just three road-course venues. The initial 2021 schedule doubled that tally, with Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course all being added. And when COVID-19 restrictions forced the cancellation of the series’ stop at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, the Daytona road course was put in its place.   ●  Harvick has made a total of 42 NASCAR Cup Series starts on road courses. He has 19 starts apiece at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, three at the Charlotte Roval and one on the Daytona road course. He has scored two wins – Watkins Glen in 2006 and Sonoma in 2017 – along with 10 top-fives and 22 top-10s with 195 laps led. His best finish at the Charlotte Roval is third in 2019.   ●  When Harvick scored his first road-course victory at Watkins Glen in 2006, he had to beat his current team owner to do it. Tony Stewart – the “Stewart” in Stewart-Haas Racing – had won the past two NASCAR Cup Series races at the seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course and was poised to capture a third straight win as he was leading Harvick with four laps to go in the 90-lap race. But Harvick, who had already led once for 24 laps, passed Stewart on lap 87 as the two drag-raced down the frontstretch and into turn one. Harvick held onto the lead despite Stewart in his rearview mirror, earning a margin of victory of .892 of a second.   ●  Harvick’s second career road-course win also had a connection to Stewart. When Harvick won at Sonoma in 2017, he gave Stewart-Haas Racing its second straight victory at the 10-turn, 1.99-mile road course. The winner in 2016? None other than Stewart. It ended up being his 49th and final NASCAR Cup Series victory as Stewart retired from NASCAR racing at the conclusion of the season.   ●  Harvick’s last road-course win was his first in a Ford. When Harvick won at Sonoma in 2017, he became the 83rd different driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race behind the wheel of a Ford. Harvick has now won 23 Cup Series races with Ford, which makes him one of only 13 drivers to win 20 or more races with the manufacturer. He is currently tied with Rusty Wallace and Carl Edwards for 10th on the all-time Ford win list.   ●  Harvick has four road-course wins outside of the NASCAR Cup Series. Two came in the NASCAR Xfinity Series – Montreal in 2007 and Watkins Glen in 2007 – and two were in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West – Sonoma in 1998 and Sonoma in 2017. Harvick’s K&N Series win at Sonoma in 1998 was three years before his Cup Series debut on Feb. 26, 2001 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.

Kevin Harvick, Driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

The first three races of this season are very different beginning last week with a superspeedway, a road course this Sunday and a 1.5-mile oval next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Will that shake up the point standings early in the year? “Every year, there are always surprises. There are always situations where people have had a bad three weeks. You just have to approach it as you would at any other point in the season. You go to the racetrack and try to put forward the best effort that you can to position yourself for the best finish you can get, and you do that every week. I think early in the season, no matter what tracks we’re on, there are going to be surprises as far as where people are. Sometimes you’re in a good spot and sometimes you’re digging out of a hole. It’s just the way the season starts.”   In running the Busch Clash on the road course – do you feel like you gave up valuable seat time on the oval in preparation for the Daytona 500 to be good this week on the road course? “I actually feel the opposite. I felt like the Busch Clash benefitted us tremendously just because of the fact that there are a lot of things we wanted to try in this particular environment. It was basically a test for us on the road-course stuff, and with so many road courses on the schedule this year, it just allowed us to have a test session to go out and try all the things we wanted to try. No pressure of a points race or anything that comes with that. We could tear it up, but the likelihood of tearing it up on the oval is way, way higher and, for us, there are a couple of benefits of not having a torn-up car and being able to make some laps and try to hone in on exactly what we need for our road-course program for the year.”   There are seven road-course races on the schedule this year. Do like road-course racing and are you looking forward to doing it so often? “I enjoy road racing. For us, it’s kind of up and down as far as what we’ve been able to do on the racetrack from a performance side, but a lot of that was track specific, too. Sonoma has been a really good racetrack for us. Then you look at Daytona – we kind of all got thrown on there last year. I think we all said we would’ve done probably a hundred things differently. It has yet to be seen, but I think running the Busch Clash helped us this week going back to the road course. We definitely have some racetracks that we needed to work on to try and make our stuff better, but we also know that we are going to some new places. We have to be a little more prepared, and that goes for me too. I’m trying to learn these new racetracks – which curbs to hit and all those types of things. We’re going to be aggressive with it and spend more time in the simulator and more time in the go kart trying to do some other things outside of what we do in the Mobil 1 Ford Mustang.”   Would you rather have more road courses or short tracks? “I would probably vote for short tracks just because of the fact that I think that short-track racing is a lot of fun to watch. The road courses will be great to mix it up, but when you look at the short tracks, everybody can see what’s going on from their seat and not wonder what happens the next time around. I think there’s a balance between adding more short tracks compared to road courses.”   Whether it’s a road course or a short track or any kind of track, you have an added advantage with Mobil 1 as a sponsor and technology partner. How advantageous has this relationship been? “The oil in the engine, the oil in the transmission, the oil in the rear gear and the things Mobil 1 provides us from a lubricant standpoint, it all adds up in the form of quicker lap times. On an oval, we can pick up a tenth-and-a-half or two-tenths of a second. On a road course, Mobil 1 helps with preservation, because we beat the heck out of our racecars – hitting curbs and shifting all the time. The level of technology and commitment to the things that go in our car, every piece of it adds up to a pretty big chunk of speed and an incredible amount of reliability.”